Pretending to have no ambition in order to escape shame of lack of acheivements?

Brid Hegarty

If it's a choice between being ambitious but not having gotten very far, or looking like someone who doesn't realise their own potential, which would you choose? I'm happy to on occasion pretend I have no imagination in order to hide my embarrassment of some of my plans not having worked out. It's one or the other? Do many other people do the same I wonder. Because if not, then I don't get why there's so many people out there who seem to have absolutely no ambition what so ever.

I wonder do others do this too? Keep their plan or dream a complete secret. I've known a lot of people who've shared all their ambitions and get no where, and as a result look like fools. Americans seem as if they aren't good at keeping their plans a secret. But maybe that's only because they tend to be more ambitious than us anyway. Hence the reason why we begrudge rich people instead of being inspired by them.

maestroamado

a wannabe...

AckwelFoley

I don't think people that fail to achieve their ambitions are foolish. Some of the most successful people in the world have failed time and time again, and continue to fail. Google itself, probably shelves more than half their creations because the fall flat.

The Quintessence Model

Why's it embarrassing that some of your plans haven't worked out? That's true of basically everyone.

And it's better to just be honest imo.

Jequ0n

Nothing wrong with lying if it’s done for the right reasons but:

I can’t see any benefit in trying to “justify” lack of achievement though. Sure there are people who no make absolutely piss poor decisions and you can never understand how they possibly thought their plans might work out. But generally I can’t see why you’d look down on someone for trying something. Better than never having tried it, even if it didn’t work out.

Brid Hegarty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118373865#Comment_118373865

That's different in that google will only ever be known for its successes. But if you are known as that guy who was all talk about being a famous singer in his early twenties... not being able to give time to family because of it, and then 5 to 10 years you're working in Tesco, then that's a different matter. If you have actually achieved something decent that will never be able to be taken away from you, then you are free to fail all you want and people won't notice.

That student in the movie Whiplash would be a good example of what I'm talking about.

Jequ0n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118373891#Comment_118373891

That example sounds less like ambition but rather like a case of a naive little prick who was brought up being told that they are amazing and can do anything, and who has to learn the lesson of life.

I'd think far less of the kind of person who would look down upon another or consider them fools for having failed dreams or ambitions. There is no shame in something not working out,

Nothing wrong in working in Tesco, either.

AckwelFoley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118373891#Comment_118373891

Most artists aren't famous, most footballers aren't professional. I know one guy went to Manchester United, then to Millwall and then to local plumbing store. He followed the dream, it didn't work out, he moved on.

Other circumstances, in work you try, you fail, you try again.

There are some cases where perhaps the ambitions don't match the reality, but I'll always respect someone that tries.

Ambition isn't a fixed point, and it's not equal for all. You set your own goals and try to achieve them. I never wanted to own Google, but I did want to achieve other things which I'm my 40s I can say I have and I'm relatively comfortable.

Complete and utter lack of ambition is a different matter and anecdotally I feel is more prevalent in are younger generation, but that's probably me being an old man shouting at the sky

Americans don't view failure to achieve the same way Irish people do. When my business failed, my American friends were all gung ho and thought it was great I had tried, and wondered what my next venture would be. My Irish friends looked at it like it was an embarrassment. They pitied me and it was like a dirty subject never to be talked about again.

Might be why Ireland isn't entrepreneurial at all. You risk your time and money, but also your reputation.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118373916#Comment_118373916

There's a world of difference between allowing failure to happen, and not having the ambition that create the circumstances for failure to happen.

Ambitious people actively approve of "failures" because they're not considered "failures", but rather stepping stones on the path toward success.

Unambitious people can experience 1 bout of "failure" and give up; or blame something / someone else, for their problems.

TheValeyard

I think you forget that people's ambitions can change.

You might want to be on the top table in work, but then you settle down and have a family, so you'd prefer a better balance between the two.

I'd say many people get into a position where they are comfortable where they are. It works for them. Hours, pay, free time have an equilibrium, could kill off any ambition a person might have.

BrianD3

IME, and regardless of your potential/ability, you'll be sneered at if you are perceived to be ambitious and unsuccessful or unambitious and unsuccessful. You might also be "pitied". People love to punch down. A human instinct but perhaps more prevalent in Ireland than some other countries.

Mad_maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118373865#Comment_118373865

yes but those people invariably have succeeded far more than they have failed which is necessary in order to be considered a success

oceanman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058224342/pretending-to-have-no-ambition-in-order-to-escape-shame-of-lack-of-acheivements

most americans i have ever know are complete dicks....

There is a belief out there particularly among the older generation without much education that a degree is a ticket to great success, it certainly can be for many people who studied something in high demand. But for others it doesn’t work out that way.

Brid Hegarty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118374309#Comment_118374309

I know that better than anyone.

And the sad thing is I could find you a dozen unemployed graduates where I live but I couldn’t get a carpenter to come and do a bit of work. The ones round here are all flat out.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118374342#Comment_118374342

The Graduates would'nt like their Resumé's or CV tainted or blemished with such tradesman type activity

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118374360#Comment_118374360

But you need to do a 4-year apprenticeship first right?

The crash-recovery-boom-crash cycle of construction doesn't make it ideal for a lot of people.

Sunny Disposition

Ambition is valued by young people mostly. By the time you’re 40 you’ve probably got some non career priorities. You’ve also probably known some people who have been seriously ill and died and you realise that things you thought were very important aren’t as important as you’d imagined.

Obviously there are exceptions but this is true for many of us.

The blunt truth is we are almost totally insignificant, just entertaining ourselves for the tiny amount of time between birth and death.

Montage of Feck

I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?

NSAman

‘The only person holding you back is yourself”..my dad said this to me years ago.

if you don’t dream and don’t try, you never succeed. Failure is part of anyones success. It makes you wise, it SHOULD make you humble, it should also make you an educated individual if you see where you went wrong and adjust in the future.

People in my past (my ex) told me I had no ambition. Mainly due to the fact I didn’t know how to push myself. I am not massively successful (never want to be) but I do ok. Many of the plans I had for my future I have attained. Many of the goals I had, I have achieved. Does it make me a better person than someone else? No. Does it give you confidence .. YES. Did I fail getting here? MASSIVELY!

Fear of failure means you will get no where.

Strumms

Failure is part of life.

better to try and fail or not achieve then be sitting back wishing you tried and regretting you didn’t.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058224342/pretending-to-have-no-ambition-in-order-to-escape-shame-of-lack-of-acheivements

The guy from KFC was 65 when he established it. We have this mindset today that unless we are high flyers by the time we are 30, our life has been a washout. And we continuously compare ourselves to others. It's total and utter bull.

I've had numerous failures and disasters throughout life, and it is only since 2019, at the age of 36 at the time, that my career prospects are looking up. It's never over unless you say it's over. I have much more time for the man or woman who steps into the arena and is prepared to take a risk than someone who just wants to sit on the fence and waste their talent.

That's the same with anything. With love, with sport, with careers. Its all about identifying your passions and interest, and establishing a community of people who share those passions and interests.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118373944#Comment_118373944

We are getting away from that mindset though. Ireland, for all its faults, is a great place for startups. Low corporate tax rates, skilled workforce. We have massive startup success stories. Stripe or example

I started an online business back in 2019, and while it has along way to go, ive gained some notoreity, and the Irish people from the four corners of the country and beyond, have got right behind me. We may be behind the Americans in attitude, but we are getting there.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118373944#Comment_118373944

On the other hand if you can get tendrils in somewhere in Ireland everyone will bend over so the local teenagers can be paid 7 quid an hour. Can think of a few businesses that shut down and open under a new name every few years and a couple of others who burned all their suppliers, the tax man, their staff and a bunch of other people, start again in a different family member's name and everyone comes back to them all lubed up again. It's like once you have an established "business" that's all that matters.

On the football thing, few years ago a lad in work mentioned a guy he went to school with had moved back from England after not "making it" in football. From he was 16 til he was in his 30s he got paid better than probably 90% of people he grew up with and for playing football. If that's a failure it sounds pretty fuckin good to me.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118373944#Comment_118373944

it could be also that when an Irish business goes bust, lots of customers, other traders and contractors are left severely out of pocket, and the bancruptcy process here is so weak that the business owner will still be living in their dream home, where'as in the states everything will be taken and it truly is a clean slate. The amount of business people in Ireland who know their business is going wallop, but still rack of debts, get work out of other people by promising to pay later(ie never), is obscene

On the big scale look at all the Celtic tiger property developers that are property developers again with multimillion pound deals. the only way this could happen is with assets hidden at the time of their bankruptcy. another example would be a certain well known TD with long red hair, signing over his Italian villa to his brother before bankruptcy, so still has exclusive use of it(who also didnt pay his employee pension contributions).

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118380649#Comment_118380649

Give'us a job

CGI_Livia_Soprano

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118374360#Comment_118374360

Jealous you couldn’t go to university are you?

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118373944#Comment_118373944

Maybe, but I'm suspicious too of this mantra that business failure is a mark of pride. Business failure often entails leaving suppliers stung. In Ireland you've sweet feck all hope of recovering credit given to businesses that fail. Revenue and the banks have their paws in first (surprise, surprise) with little or nothing left to pay the small guys. Maybe that's why we have a different perspective here of business failure - the fact that we get stung when it happens.

There was a rash of people with over inflated egos that opened businesses during the Celtic Tiger years, fancy offices and equipment. That then failed and left a trail of suppliers unpaid. Worst of course were those whose businesses involved property speculation as we then had the galling matter of propping them up for their greed.

But as for the OP, yes a bit of well directed and thought out ambition is a great thing.

I know a person (related) very successful, education, career and you'd have to employ medieval torture tactics to get them to divulge.

The closest I ever heard them to "boasting" was admiting a global company skipped several interview rounds and hired them the same day.

People may be successful even if they don't let it be known. This may come across as unambitious if you didn't know them professionally.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118381168#Comment_118381168

Missed this first time reading through but yes that is exactly the point. Too much protection here for business failures and private property interests.

Something to be said for the USA mentality but that needs to be balanced with more meaningful consequences.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118380329#Comment_118380329

This is spot on. I look at some young people I know that have ambitious plans, a good work ethic and a great chance to succeed. Its great for them.

I'm now in my late forties, a professional, quite successful and the thoughts of doing a fraction of the effort needed when first starting off leaves me cold.

Failure is lack of trying; success is trying. And trying again. And again. Once it’s something that’s safe!

I had an ambition to fly an airplane solo ever since I was terrified of the experience during my first ever flight aged 14 aboard a Cessna 172 on pretty rough weather. It was an extremely bumpy flight, and my Dad had hired the plane with a qualified instructor who let him stall the plane “for fun”. So my first ever flight incorporated a heavy nosedive with the pilot and my father laughing their heads off and myself whimpering on terror in the rear. I decided there and then I would be master if this and be able to handle exactly the same situation comfortably and confidently. I read tons about flying, stealing a book from the library where I worked as pilot’s manuals were an absolute fortune and rare as hens teeth. I intended to return the book, but much to my shame I didn’t.

It made a pilot of me along with lessons from the famous Captain Darby Kennedy who gave me my wings aged 20. Unfortunately upon renewal, my license was redacted because I failed the eyesight requirements of the day.

The wonderful thing is I am still able to fly with a qualified instructor supervising, and as these instructors say “you never forget it, your muscle memory is all there”. I think flying all the time so it is ingrained in my head and ready to go when I get onto the controls. U subsequently brought a friend with camera in back who was very nervous when instructor allowed me to complete the landing as he had his fingers interlocked behind neck. “We’re getting very close to the ground” Thrn the stall warning goes off, as it ought to in a Cessna 172 at the point of moment touchdown, when there was a “whoa!!!!” from my friend as the wheels very gently nudged the runway. “There, you didn’t trust her did you - that was a class landing!”

I have any number of ongoing ambitions, my attitude is I can do almost anything. Aged 60 my brain is sharper than it ever was and I’m learning all sorts of stuff. My late aunt was learning and doing new unfamiliar stuff until age 88 when she died suddenly of a stroke. She pushed herself to learn and in her last year of life declared likewise that her brain was never so active as it was now because of the challenges she set herself.

No harm trying anything. Flying is good if you can sacrifice something else to afford occasional lessons. If you want to go solo you must prove yourself safe and competent to get the validation, but even if you don’t go that whole hog you can have fun. Try helicoptering once or twice, great for the brain if you study the aerodynamics ahead of your lesson or two and imagine the machine responding to your gentle and appropriate inputs.

Taking up a musical instrument, learning a new language, trying sailing, painting, sculpture, woodwork is great.

If you have physical limitations learning tech/programming is a great way of manipulating your neural connections and could be very useful especially these days. I’m learning all that stuff. Have crammed in JavaScript, CSS (one that everyone finds tricky but oddly I find fun because of my visual way of thinking), Python (a grand easy beginners coding), SQL to query databases, the shell of various operating systems. I find if I learn stuff all in parallel it cross-feeds in helping me learn. I find the more I learn, the more able I am to learn more.

So yes, I broadly declare my ambitions. I am trying, that is success. Cherry on the cake is when I start earning a bit from my efforts, but I don’t actually need to do that.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118373916#Comment_118373916

Crazy looking down on business failures. I admire people most of all who try. I know several people whose business ventures eventually “failed” in that they are no longer in that business. IThe most successful people in the world are the people who have tried and “failed” probably numerous times. That’s why I equate trying with success. There’d be no businesses or services if there weren’t people to try.

But as posters have pointed out, in Ireland creditors can get badly stung. That’s not great and can lead to more businesses going under.

blackbox

I remember when Larry Goodman went bust he owed so much money that if he won the lotto every week for a year he couldn't have paid it all back.

Yet here he is now at the top of the meat business in Europe after being 'forgiven' and propped up by the banks.

Not so different from Donald Trump in the USA.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118381194#Comment_118381194

Lol, thanks for your interest. Hopefully ill be in a position to employ in the not too distant future :)